Aluminum corrosion–passivation regulation prolongs aqueous batteries life

Aluminum current collectors are widely used in nonaqueous batteries owing to their cost-effectiveness, lightweightness, and ease of fabrication. However, they are excluded from aqueous batteries due to their severe corrosion in aqueous solutions. Here, we propose hydrolyzation-type anodic additives to form a robust passivation layer to suppress corrosion. These additives dramatically lower the corrosion current density of aluminum by nearly three orders of magnitude to ~10−6 A cm−2. In addition, realizing that electrochemical corrosion accompanies anode prelithiation, we propose a prototype of self-prolonging aqueous Li-ion batteries (Al ||LiMn2O4 ||TiO2), whose capacity retention rises from 49.5% to 70.1% after 200 cycles. A sacrificial aluminum electrode where electrochemical corrosion is utilized is introduced as an electron supplement to prolong the cycling life of aqueous batteries. Our work addresses the short-life issue of aqueous batteries resulting from the corrosion of the current collector and lithium loss from side reactions.


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The aluminum current collector is widely used in non-aqueous batteries thanks to its cost-effectiveness, lightweight, and ease of fabrication.However, it is excluded from aqueous batteries due to its severe corrosion in the aqueous solution.Here, we come up with hydrolyzation-type anodic additives to form a robust passivation layer to suppress the corrosion, dramatically lowering the corrosion current density of aluminum by nearly three orders of magnitude to ~10-6 A cm-2.Besides, inspired by the discoveries that the electrochemical corrosion accompanied the anode pre-lithiation, we propose the prototype of self-prolonging aqueous Li-ion batteries (Al||LiMn2O4||TiO2) by additionally introducing a sacrificial aluminum electrode where the electrochemical corrosion is utilized as an electron supplement to prolong the cycling life of aqueous batteries, whose capacity retention rises from 49.5% to 70.1% after 200 cycles.Our work addresses the short-life issue of aqueous batteries resulting from current collector corrosion and lithium loss from side reactions.
The Al foils used in the experiments can be purchased from commercial sources, and the Al foil used for testing and assembling the battery is from the same batch of material.All Details were explained in the Results and discussion and Methods section of the manuscript.

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